“Sh-h!” warned the guide.
The man opened the curtain of the nearest box. He gripped Cleve’s arm firmly and guided him forward.
Cleve was momentarily astonished to find his foot poised over empty space, where there should have been a solid floor. He was advancing toward the seats by the rail of the box, but he was moving downward, and his guide was following him!
Staring upward, Cleve caught a last vague glimpse of the dome of the theater. Then, almost before he realized it, his head was below the level of the floor!
There was a slight noise above. Cleve kept boldly on, and his foot struck the level. The passage was broad here. The Chinaman was beside him. The guide pressed against a barrier ahead; a door opened into a dim passageway.
They were nearing the meeting place — and it was here, beneath the pit of the theater!
A recollection came to Cleve. He recalled that night when he had stood in the box above; how he had sensed a hidden presence.
He had been at the entrance to the inner shrine of the Wu-Fan — almost at the top step of the concealed stairway — and he had not known it!
He must have been observed, then, by some watcher in the dark. If so, he had been close to death. For the Wu-Fan — no matter how friendly it might seek to be — was, after all, an Oriental scheme.
The ways of the Chinese were dark, reflected Cleve, and he knew that intruders to this secret spot would encounter grave risks.